University of Tartu researcher involved in reports published in Nature

Results of the research of Leopold Parts, undertaken as a part of
international research consortium, and conducted in the University of Tartu Institute of
Computer Science, were published in two Nature articles in November
2007.
Currently a PhD student of the Sanger Institute and the University of Cambridge, Leopold Parts came to Tartu on a three-month exchange visit in 2006, working in Dr. Jaak Vilo's bioinformatics research group (BIIT) at the Institute of Computer Science of UT. Together with a group of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he performed an analysis of fruitfly genomes, studying microRNA genes. Using the genomes of 12 different flies allowed researchers to enhance the sensitivity and specificity of their predictions by employing the evolutionary signatures of the genes.

The consortium was interested in evolution of genes and genomes in the fruitfly phylogeny, and the computational discovery of different functional elements in the genome. The results were made available to the scientific community in November, when two joint articles of the collaborating groups were published in Nature, together with tens of companion articles in other journals.

"For a student who is now only in his second year of PhD studies, this is a remarkable achievement. The study is significant in that it shows just how important sequencing the genomes of mammals is for understanding the human genome," Dr. Jaak Vilo explained. "Leopold Parts is a highly motivated researcher whose vibrant and physically fit presence defeats all myths of 'young science nerds'. I am very glad to have spurred his initial interest in bioinformatics during a course in text algorithms that I read at the University of Tartu in 2003."

Leopold Parts started his university studies in the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science of the University of Tartu. He has represented the University in several international mathematics and informatics contests. In 2003, he was admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US. From there, he has made exchange visits to the University of Cambridge in the UK and, during summers, also to Estonia, where he has worked in the Institute of Computer Science.

Supplementary information about Dr. Jaak Vilo's research group BIIT and references to the articles are available at: http://biit.cs.ut.ee